Elin M. Oftedal and Lene Foss

This chapter discusses how responsible start-ups are met in the health sector. Through following three companies, Voco, Cora and Medicus, we acquire insight into the world of challenges the entrepreneurs have when they introduce their technology/service to the healthcare sector. Using institutional theory, we look at the regulative, normative and cognitive dimension of the institutional framework. We use the term ‘institutional wall’ to denote a dense network of formal laws and regulation, informal norms and knowledge and beliefs that act as barriers for the entrepreneurs to access the market. We find that while there is a positive development in the regulative dimension: both the regulative and the normative dimension are set up to favour larger companies. The founders’ responses to the cognitive dimension indicate a lack of belief in Norwegian technology and thus tough access to finance.

Ella Henry and Léo-Paul Dana

This chapter draws together the social entrepreneurship, social capital and cultural capital literature to inform the analysis of a research project in New Zealand, that has incorporated Māori Indigenous researchers, a Māori social enterprise, and its local community facing extreme challenges. The authors argue that social enterprise delivers more than business activity, whether they are for-profit or non-profit. Indigenous social enterprise and social entrepreneurs also bring together Indigenous communities, to work collaboratively for cultural revitalisation and social change. Further, the chapter explores the role of Māori/Indigenous researchers, and Indigenous research methodologies, in contributing to that cultural revitalisation and social change. This case illustrates how social entrepreneurs and researchers, who share cultural capital (in this case, the shared values and world view of an Indigenous people), might work collaboratively to enhance the social capital of the enterprise, and the community.

Edited by Anne de Bruin and Simon Teasdale

Edited by
Anne de Bruin and Simon Teasdale

In the last two decades social entrepreneurship has grown in energy and impact as entrepreneurial spirit has increasingly turned to finding solutions for social, cultural and environmental issues. As social entrepreneurship has grown in popularity, so too has its academic study. A Research Agenda for Social Entrepreneurship brings together contributions from developing paths in the field to signpost the directions ahead for the study of social entrepreneurship.

Empowering the Patient

Edited by
Tatiana Iakovleva, Elin M. Oftedal and John Bessant

Powerful new approaches and advances in medical systems drive increasingly high expectations for healthcare providers internationally. The form of digital healthcare – a suite of new technologies offering significant benefits in cost and quality – allow institutions to keep pace with society’s needs. This book covers the need for responsible innovation in this area, exploring the issues of implementation as well as potential negative consequences to ensure digital healthcare delivers for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Political Entrepreneurship for a Prosperous Europe

Edited by
Charlie Karlsson, Daniel Silander and Brigitte Pircher

This study explores the Europe 2020 strategy and the role of European political entrepreneurship in debating, shaping and implementing this strategy within the EU. The book sets out to explore the content, conditions and consequences of Europe 2020 by analysing the plan for a future prosperous EU economy. The main focus is on European political entrepreneurship and how the strategy has been debated and decided on, and then implemented from a governance perspective with multiple European actors.

Michael H. Morris, Susana C. Santos and Xaver Neumeyer

Michael H. Morris, Susana C. Santos and Xaver Neumeyer

While extensively explored as a solution to poverty at the base of the pyramid, this is the first in-depth examination of entrepreneurship and the poor within advanced economies. The authors explore the underlying nature of poverty and draw implications for new venture creation. Entrepreneurship is presented as a source of empowerment that represents an alternative pathway out of poverty.

Edited by
Maritza I. Espina, Phillip H. Phan and Gideon D. Markman

The rapid and formative rise in research on social innovation and entrepreneurship means that theoretical frameworks are still being created, while traditional notions of economic efficiency and social welfare are tested. The field is progressing fastest in the measurement and measuring of social entrepreneurial effectiveness. Social innovators, who draw from philanthropy, as well as capital markets, for financial resources, have adopted the lean start up as a paradigm for their organization logics.